The Best Lee Greenwood Songs

Lee Greenwood is best known for his patriotic anthem "God Bless the USA," but the singer scored dozens of other hits on the country charts throughout the '80s and '90s. I became well-acquainted with Greenwood's catalog early on and I still have many of his cassette tapes as evidence of that era.

Here are my choices for the 10 best Lee Greenwood songs.

Best Lee Greenwood song #10: Holdin' a Good Hand (1990)
Greenwood's last top 10 hit, "Holdin' a Good Hand" got to #2 on the country chart in 1990. The up-tempo song was written by Rob Crosby, who wrote a string of country hits, including Martina McBride's "Concrete Angel."

Best Lee Greenwood song #9: It Turns Me Inside Out (1981)
"In a way I'm glad it's over / In another way it turns me inside out," Lee sings in this tearjerker, his first hit single. Greenwood claims to look for songs with depth when putting together his albums, and this one certainly has it. It also gives him a rare chance to demonstrate his falsetto.

Best Lee Greenwood song #8: We Could've Been (1987)
An album track from If There's Any Justice, "We Could've Been" is the story of a lost love from long ago, with Greenwood asking, "I wonder who you became / Did you change the world or change your name?" It's a very relatable song with a pleasant melody.

Best Lee Greenwood song #7: Dixie Road (1985)
The only new song on Greenwood's Greatest Hits collection, "Dixie Road" is an easygoing song with slide guitar and chorus harmonies between Lee and female background singers. It was his third #1 song on the country chart. The harmless song was actually censored when Greenwood sang it on the Family Channel, due to the lyric "lights burn like hell."

Best Lee Greenwood song #6: I.O.U. (1983)
"I.O.U." was Lee's biggest hit on the adult contemporary chart, reaching #4, a higher placement than its #6 country peak. As good as the song is, its music video is a classic early '80s embarrassment, with shots of Greenwood awkwardly singing directly into the camera mixed with fake home videos. Very entertaining, at least!

Best Lee Greenwood song #5: I Never Thought Your Memory Would Ever Go This Far (1992)
Love's On the Way was a commercial disappointment for Greenwood, producing just the hit "Before I'm Ever Over You," which peaked at a lowly #73 on the country chart. The album's best song was "I Never Thought Your Memory Would Ever Go This Far."

Written by the team of Bobby Fischer, Charlie Black and Rory Michael Bourke, the song is a gentle ballad about being unable to get over a former lover: "There was someone here / She won't be back now / Of all the names I could have whispered / I chose your somehow."

Best Lee Greenwood song #4: If There's Any Justice (1987)
Three of the top four songs on this list are from Lee's 1987 album If There's Any Justice, the best work of his career. Some of his early '80s love songs were schmaltzy, but on this record the songs reveal more depth and less cliché. The mostly-acoustic title track is a good example. "If there's a God up in the sky, and if there's any justice in this world, I should be with you," Greenwood sings.

Best Lee Greenwood song #3: Touch and Go Crazy (1987)
Another If There's Any Justice track, "Touch and Go Crazy" is one of the most up-tempo songs of Greenwood's career, one that wouldn't have sounded out of place on pop radio. "Once we touch baby don't you know/ It won't be touch and go / It's gonna be touch and go crazy!" Its catchy synth beat helped the song reach #5 on the country charts.

Best Lee Greenwood song #2: God Bless the USA (1984)
There's no denying the legacy of this song. One of the few hits that Lee wrote himself, "God Bless the USA" has rightfully become one of the most recognizable patriotic songs in popular music, played every 4th of July and during times of war.

Little-known fact about Lee: Country music's biggest patriot re-wrote the lyrics for a new version of this song called "God Bless You Canada" for our neighbors to the north. Suddenly, the American version doesn't feel so special anymore!

Best Lee Greenwood song #1: Somebody's Leaving (1987)
This obscure tune didn't get nearly the attention it deserved. Opening with the line, "Two old worn suitcases standing by the door / Broken hearts and promises scattered on the floor," the song is a tale of a woman in love with two people who must choose between them.

As the bridge arrives, Lee begins singing higher and higher. "Three people's lives are gonna change today," he belts. "And that treasured dream called family is something that will never be," Lee continues as the chorus appears, going into the upper-most reaches of his vocal range to deliver the hook.

The last track on If There's Any Justice, "Somebody's Leaving" is Greenwood's most impressive vocal performance and one of his most compelling stories. From a critical point of view, it's the best song of Lee Greenwood's career.

Good luck tracking it down for download - as of this writing, it's not available on iTunes, YouTube or any other online musical outlet I could find. The song was first recorded by John Conlee in 1979 and later by Glen Campbell in 1990 - both of those versions are on iTunes, but they lack the emotion and vocal gymnastics of Greenwood's excellent cover.

Best Lee Greenwood songs: Others
Among the songs that just missed the list of the 10 Best Lee Greenwood Songs were "Mornin' Ride," "Ring On Her Finger, Time on Her Hands," and "Hopelessly Yours," a duet with Suzy Bogguss from Greenwood's all-duets album A Perfect 10.

Best Lee Greenwood songs: Sources
www.leegreenwood.com
www.cmt.com